


When the Sun rises in the North

by Threedown



Category: A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Canon Rewrite, Half-Sibling Incest, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-06-11
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-12 22:26:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,697
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11171346
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Threedown/pseuds/Threedown
Summary: Robb is fighting in the Westerlands, while Jon is North of the Wall. It seems impossible for them to meet, or hear from each other, yet Robb receives a letter informing of Jon’s disappearance in the middle of the night. And, somehow, it might be crucial to change the King’s mind in the outcome of the war.





	1. Chapter 1

“Your Grace, it is time…”

Robb let the letter slip between his fingers, paper blank even still after hours of just staring at the inkpot and quill before him in the poor attempt to write down a few words. He curses, but the only one to hear him is the four-legged occupant of the skin rug. The first time has come so easily that Robb would think the third time would be ever simpler, and for a King who is asked to walk away from his tent to take the life of a man now, then the sole deed to send a letter… I mean, who bothers? It was like killing an insect with the palm of his hand. He shouldn’t feel like this. And above all things, he shouldn’t feel like this when it was his half-brother he was writing to.

He sighs, fingers stained with black but still collect his shiny red curls above his head in a ponytail. The tension of the muscles in his neck and shoulders is like an annoying moth. He can still feel the smell of battle on him too. The intimacy of his personal tent brings a new light now and he sees smears of dry blood on his body, almost fresh, the same invisible hand which has befallen on Lannister’s camp today still follows him even when the sun was no longer shining in the sky. His eyes capture again the white parchment on the desk. A few weeks ago, he had written to the Night’s Watch to inform them of his Father’s death. He said the Night’s Watch, but there was only one person he was interested in knowing. The King inside of him had argued with that, but still he knew he had to make sure his brother Jon Snow was notified, even if he was no longer in Castle Black.

And how ironic was it. Which once started as a feeling, now it became true for the reply brought the tidings that Jon was indeed in an expedition Beyond the Wall. How he had known that, was beyond him. The fluid became dry in his throat when he read it, and immediately asked again the exact location of Mormont’s troops, fearing it had something to do with this Mance Rayder, at least hundreds leagues north of The Wall. There’s a King in every corner, his mother had said before riding south, but now it looks more like war in every corner. Grey Wind did a whining sound from the floor, and Robb meets his golden liquid stare, kind of childish and supplicant now. He kneels next to his giant body, and strokes his silky ears in an appeasing manner, hoping it will also serve to calm him the same amount.

“It’s alright, boy. Jon is okay, I know he is.” He whispered, tightly. 

But when he closed his eyes, it was for how much he wished to crook his neck to the tent flaps and for once see something or someone other than Smalljon’s bearskin pelt peering from the outside. Someone who always had the same shape in his dreams, the same defined black curls, the same dimples over his mouth which curve into a frown more than a smile. He sighs, sadly. He shouldn’t write a third letter, he knows, for it was too obvious, even from him. Yet he did not know how longer he could wait here in the Westerlands, while his brother was God knows where in a land of pure white ice. Growing further and further away from him.

“Your Grace…”

Smalljon’s voice again. Jumping into steel, Robb stands up and reaches for the wall peg, where his giant sword lays hanging inside the scabbard. He keeps a tight grip with his hand as he collects it, thumb playing to unsheathe and sheathe the steel in a cycle and he turns back, the effect achieved as his stare becomes that of a man with each clink. Grey Wind stretches his limps, claws coming out to bite the cold air, and follows his companion out of the tent and into the night. Smalljon Umber is standing ankle-deep into the mud and nods to him, under his enormous silver plate armor, crisscrossed with heavy chains. Soaked to the bone thanks to the late rains, he and his huge bearskin looked like twin giants.

“You look pale, my friend.” Robb greets, with a gentle smile to the man who had been his personal guard during the whole campaign. Both start to walk side by side through the soft ground, careful to prevent the suction.

“Must be something about the air, Your Grace. Lion’s territories do that to ya’, I heard.” He replies, and his smile is grim.

The King knows what’s behind it. His men grew restless when the news of Renly Baratheon’s death reached the camp. They have been hoping for and aid hand of none other than Storm’s End, if only to turn the tides greatly to their side and strike King’s Landing as quick as possible. A dream, now, unreachable. His mother came alone, escorted by a woman knight called Brienne of Tarth, who claimed to be her new sworn sword, and the explanation given by both when asked about the assassination made Lord Umber almost retch back breakfast. A shadow, they said, with the face of Stannis Baratheon. Robb tightens his jaws, remembering the face of his mother, twin blue eyes blazing across the room with the same shade of her words against betraying Walder Frey, and something inside of him twists. North and South were supposed to be his escaping routes, but with each raven, he fears they had turned into the same jaws that he’d hoped see shut against the Queen and her son. Now, against him.

He had lost Winterfell. His younger brothers, Bran and Rickon. And Jon…

“Yeah, I know.” He replies, distractedly, as he keeps a solemn pace. “But cheer up. Tonight, there will be one less Lannister to worry about.”

The ground gives way to a heavy manned area, secluded and vibrant with voices, snorts, and murmurs. The biggest strength of his army was here, ready to see the continuation of their last victory at Oxcross. 

Robb curls his right hand around the hilt of the sword, as he makes his way to the centre. The night finds the northerners wild, drunk and outspoken, as their huge pelts huddle together as much as they could, as to let the furthest faces see what’s going on. But, one after the other, they turn around and step aside. Finally, the sea of people ends at the beginning of an execution, five Stark’s men are seen standing around an ironwood stump, and two of them are holding a blonde going bald man, sporting a fine Lannister’s armor, but with little splendor given his enraged face, and wild attempts to wrench free. He curses, and claws at the air, furiously as a chain of insults fall from his mouth.

“Tywin! I want to see Tywin!” He screams, and a large file of Northerners laughs, amused. “I demand to see Tywin now!”

“Yeah, I’m calling him.” the Greatjon boasts, comically, as he artistically fists his right hand against his ribs. “Wait. I think he’s coming.”

His face flies as a great punch from the Greatjon drowns his complains. The crowd cheers again, when a bloody lip is there for all to see, including a bruise above his cheek. Robb frowns, dangerously.

“Lord Umber!” He yells, upset, and the big man retreats, chastised. “The next time I see you doing that, you’ll be the one there on your knees.”

No one said anything else after his voice died. Robb gives a couple of steps to the feud and stands before the prisoner, with great weight in his blue eyes. Stafford Lannister looks back, with his eyes speckled in hatred at the young King. A just look, Robb thinks. As his army had looted and sacked his lands, and honor demands that he takes his life now to send a message to his kin Tywin Lannister for the wrongs he did in the Riverlands. He doesn’t say further, as the sentries force him into his knees before the ironwood stump and strings of silence start to build up around the camp. 

“No! Please no!” Robb snaps his head to the crowd.

A boy runs hurriedly, dodging the few Stark’s men who try to grab him, and stops right in front of Robb with his arms outstretched. He’s young, he thinks, probably young even to be a squire.

“Boy, go back to your family.” The Smalljon warns, crossly, behind Robb. The blonde only shakes his head.

“No, please. Don’t kill my Father. He hasn’t done anything to you.”

“Daven! Go back!”

The King lowers his eyes. He wants this no more than the boy himself, but it’s what needs to be done. He takes in his face, with freckles and arms which had not picked up a shovel in his life, and sighs. Is this how I must’ve looked if I were to be in The Great Septon of Baelor the day they murdered my Father? Facing him fully, with his big shoulders pressed back, Robb speaks.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t spare your Father’s life. You and your family will be permitted to take the black, though. I’m sure you’ll be received well in the Wall, given how Lord Mormont is with his new recruits.”

The boy’s eyes widen shockingly, and a silent prayer falls from his lips. Robb orders his men to take him back to his family, his wailing mother, and two younger brothers, as he tears his body away from the sight.

“Take the black? That’s very honorable of you, Your Grace.” Lord Stafford says, mockingly, crooking his neck to catch his eyes. “Come on, do it and be quick about it. Is that too much to ask when you have a joke of a sword? The glorious House Stark lost its ancestral sword, Ice, to mine. It won’t take long before you go through the same path.”

Robb takes the life from the man in a single blow. With a heavy heart. His face is soaked wet, as he lets the sword slip from his hands into the ground, and the tendons under his gloves twitch at the lack of it. He didn’t know the fabric could burn that much, until he realized it was him and the blood running underneath. As his men take care of the body, his eyes skirt across the multitude and he catches Daven Lannister, staring with such anger he had barely seen in his life, which also explains why his tears had long dried. He will never forgive this. He breaks the gaze, and is quick about the instructions which follow an execution, also exchanging a few words with Lord Karstark and Lord Umber about their need to move to The Crag in the morning. As he begins to leave, and goes straight past the mourning widow, and her sons, he noticed the boy had not stopped following him along with his eyes.

“I will kill you.” He says, suddenly, and Robb stops, without looking. “I don’t care when or how. I will make sure someone else takes the title King in the North from you.”

He doesn’t spare him a look as he continues walking impartially, words heavy and fresh in his ears. 

The crowd starts to mix in with the crude night, and men retreat to jump into a restless sleep in their tents or build the last fires, clasping drinking horns. His feet take him somewhere far though, and before he knew, he’s in the line of horses. Two riders had recently arrived, donning their surcoats embroidered with the eagle of the Mallisters, and Jason Mallister is there himself, to welcome them.

Robb stops a few paces from him, and smiles.

“Lord Mallister.” He greets, and the Lord of Seagard whirls, then bows respectfully.

“Your Grace.”

“Is there word from your Uncle at the Shadow Tower?” 

Only by sparing him a quick glance, Robb knows something is wrong. Lord Mallister’s smile turns into stone, and his tongue flicks nervously over his white moustache while he’s trying to pick his words carefully. Robb is sure his heart is jumping in his chest, savagely, with each second of ignorance. 

“There is, Your Grace.” He begins, uneasily. “My Uncle tells me something happened on the Fist of the First Men. Unnatural sightings and terrible tales in the snow. He stopped receiving ravens from Mormont a while ago, but he knows his men had come across something.”

Robb arches an eyebrow and feels the muscles in his throat thigh as ever. Unnatural sightings? Had Jon seen something too? Trying to arrange his face into a more stoic one, he asks.

“And my brother?”

“Your brother has joined the expedition to the Frostfangs with Quorin Halfhand and the rest of the team from the Shadow Tower. It seems their campsite was assaulted by a wilding party, and the letter doesn’t say further.” Lord Mallister finishes, measuring his words. “Your Grace…”

Robb swallows, unable to knit a decent piece of thought. He grits his teeth as hard as to release an unseen drop of blood, as he tries to keep his eyes open, open to a reality that Jon might be dead. You fool, he thinks hysterically, why did you have to throw yourself willingly into the enemy’s hands? He knows it does little good to think like that, for if he were to be in his place, he would probably do the same. He might have survived, a voice whispers. As panic flows through him, a ray of light rests on the idea that Jon was different from any man he’d known, for all the times they had sparred together, and for all the times they had slept together, Robb knows every inch of him as much as he knows his own. He knows how his body works, and his mind too, in circumstances which could be far less desirable for everyone else. Jon is so intelligent, more even than him, and is skillful enough to ensure his survival. He refuses to think, refuses to believe.

What if this is all my fault? 

Is the question that keeps biting him, even after dismissing Lord Mallister. He starts walking without a certain direction, only to calm the nerves that are building up inside him. He should’ve stopped him from going to the Wall. The comfort he had found in the fact that Benjen was with him, now collapses before his eyes, for Benjen was gone too. And Jon, was lost. Bran and Rickon are safe, they’re with Ser Rodrik, he remembers bitterly, and look how good that played out in the end too. Is this the prize he had to pay for his lack of desire in the things the world has for him? 

“Where is your family, Stark? Shouldn’t your three victories be of any consolation now? Because you should tell that to your face.”

Of course, he had to come here. 

Robb raises his head, and when green eyes blaze in the night, he immediately resolves Jaime Lannister had heard everything. It’s not that surprising, for the line of prisoners’ pens were set just a few paces from the horses. Blue eyes race in the night and sets on the mud-streaked face across the bars, the blonde man is slowly becoming more like part of his cell with each passing day since his capture. His posture is relaxed, though, dirty hands clasped together, and head unceremoniously laid back onto the wall. Nothing about his confinement speaks of comfort, and yet the mockery sits so comfortably in his face, like he had been locked in for ages with his fellow prisoner. Something about that makes Robb bristle. 

“Sorry.” He moves one of his booted feet playfully, and Robb feels the need to punch him for not been sorry at all, but he stays immobile, just a few inches from the door. There were other businesses that require of him, but a voice reminds him a good commander should also visit his prisoners often. Jaime Lannister’s smile stays right there where it is. “I guess I wasn’t included in the conversation. Though, I couldn’t help myself. Unnatural sightings? That’s because nobody saw Robert whoring when Ser Barristan was guarding his chambers.”

“It’s a good thing I’m sending members of your family to the Wall, then.” Robb replies, acidly. His arms curl around his chest, and the Stark’s look climbs into his eyes. 

“Are you really trying to make me feel sorry for my mother’s brother’s sons?” Jaime smirks, as he leans back and his unwashed blond hair follows. “I thought you were smarter than that.”

“I killed Lord Stafford. I won’t hesitate to kill you too, if I must.”

“And if you kill me, how do you plan on getting your sisters back?” Jaime uncurls his feet, and shoves his shoulders back. The lack of space for exercise makes the older man move almost gracelessly, yet Robb knows he’s still as dangerous as an unsheathed sword. His smirk is tricky, and intended for intimidation. “I was told Cersei wasn’t quite receptive of your peace terms.”

Robb looks at him from under his lashes, and his curls fly wildly as his eyes fixate on the Kingslayer. Then, he guesses, but bites his lip at the same time, trying to solve how his prisoner had ended up with that piece of information while in the cell. He resolves his guards should not be so outspoken when doing their duty. Jamie only stretches his arms over his head, and the rattle of the shackles follows unpleasantly, while arranges his face into a sheepish grin.

“How do you know that?” Robb asks, warily.

“She’s my twin.” Was his careless response, and the way his eyebrows lift gives Robb the feeling he should’ve known this was coming. “I know how her mind works.” 

“It’s not her mind I’m interested in.” His voice is low, and commanding, but the Kingslayer doesn’t bat an eye. Robb breathes heavily, and says. “Will your Father meet me on the field or will he ride to King’s Landing?”

“Do you honestly believe I’ll tell you that?” Jaime replies, dangerously. His nostrils flare, and the veins in the redhead’s arm jump in warning. 

“I’ll ask once again.” Robb growls, and gives a step forward. “What’s Tywin Lannister’s next move?” Jamie Lannister releases his seat in a split of second and lunges forward, but his chains clink and his body obeys. Reluctantly. 

“The same one I did when I crippled your Father.” 

Robb turns his body to face him fully and, as fast as a whip, his hand flies to the hilt of his sword, while a storm sits at the very beginning of his eyes. Jaime is impassive, while the atmosphere of a combat builds in, but his days in this cell do little justice to his Kingsguard’s senses, as Robb raises his fist and hits him fully on the face, shoving him backwards in one single move. He didn’t measure his force, but the release spoke of all those bottled feelings of anger and despair, of Winterfell in ruins and the face of his friend, Theon, as a cause of it. Somehow, it all exploded in his knuckles. 

“You shouldn’t have done that.” The Kingslayer says, as loud as a whisper. His legs tremble under his weight, but the anger in his eyes lifts, and stirs, every inch of battle cry in his skin. Robb snorts, but only to hide his surprise and lack of preparation.

He was often told by his bannermen how sickly the Kingslayer appeared these days, his reflexes dull, and the way he moved like an old Maester, other than a knight of Kingsguard, showed how much the days of imprisonment were paying up. Robb didn’t see any of that just now, when Jaime charged towards the bars, like he meant to tear them apart with unknown force. It makes him wonder if he had been acting all along. Robb swallows, and closes his eyes. ‘Read your enemy’s steps, Stark. Don’t let him fool you’ He could almost hear Ser Rodrik’s voice in his head. ‘Rodrik Cassel is dead’. And Roose Bolton’s. 

“I needed an answer.”

“And I gave you one.” Green eyes flash smartly, as he wipes the blood from his bruised lip. “Do you think you’re the first one who seats here burning our lands like a rabid dog? My Father knows the game too, Stark. And you don’t win a war with a bloody lip.”

“No, I suppose you don’t.” Robb replies, eyes blank and the storm releases his body just enough to hear his voice, cold, and placatory, again. “Your Father didn’t win the Throne from the Targaryens alone, though. He won it with strength and soldiers’ superiority from the three greatest Houses in Westeros. I imagine he doesn’t have that now, when Stannis is getting ready to take it from him.”

“Him?” Jaime arches an eyebrow. “Oh, you mean the Crown.”

“Yes, the Crown.” Robb hisses. “Your sister, the Queen. Your brother, the Hand of the King. And Joffrey, your bastard son who sits there.”

“You almost sound like Varys. I can imagine your excitement when you share small council with him after you take the Iron Throne.”

That throws Robb a little off-balance, and he steps back, suspiciously. “I don’t want the Iron Throne. I’ve never wanted it.”

“And your bannermen?” Jaime asks, feigning interest. “What do they want? What does good old Karstark say everytime you win a battle? How much they’d like to see Ned Stark’s son as the ruler of the Seven Kingdoms, after the Lannister’s filth is dealt with. How much they’d like to ride now and join forces with Stannis to put an end to our House for good.” He reaches out, clasps the bars with his fingers, and his pupils go wide and inviting, staring at the younger boy. “Do it, Stark. No one is stopping you, but if you help the man who kills Cersei and Tyrion, you should know you’re also helping the man who will kill your sister too.”

“Stannis won’t hurt Sansa.” The King tears his eyes away, ashamed his answer came out so weakly from his lips.

Days and days, they had discussed this, when Stannis’s ravens came and crowded his war council’s table. There was an atmosphere of small joy in the imminence of a Baratheon’s siege, which soon raised their spirits after Renly’s death and Winterfell’s destruction. Though, after hearing each and one of his advisors, Robb wasn’t really able to tear his eyes away from his mother. As always, she appeared strong and resolute on the outside, seated next to him, her head following his each time a military operation was pulled out, but her eyes were other thing. And Robb knew too well. There’s Sansa, and there’s Arya. Bran and Rickon. Each name a wound in her skin, growing bigger and redder, and there was nothing he could to do fix it. Nothing. She didn’t share her thoughts in his war council’s meeting though, so her sworn sword took her out, and Robb’s stomach twisted in knots.

They didn’t trust Stannis. And Brienne of Tarth could never begin to feel something close to love for the man who, as she said, murdered Renly. ‘He murdered his own brother.’ Robb could almost hear her words. ‘What do you think he will do with your sister?’ Sansa was trapped in King’s Landing and a siege would not make things better for her. His jaw clenches. As his mind races, he’s only half aware of how hard his fingernails are buried into his weapon, until he feels it wet with blood.

“He can’t hurt her.” He repeats. “She’s my—”

“My sister’s prisoner. That’s what she is.” Jamie continues. “Cersei will do as she wants with her and no one will stop her. She would have her married to Joffrey before the siege, or to Tyrion, or whoever she sets her mind on. She won’t go down alone. The City Watch won’t protect her, The Kingsguard won’t protect her. Who’s left? Oh, that’s right. You. The brother who would rather see her executed than give up on two months of foolish conquests.”

“Conquests I demanded as payment for the crimes committed by your House. For the crime of murdering my Father.”

“So, is more important your revenge than the lives of your sisters?”

“Of course not.” Robb growls, as he clenches his fist. “When I march to King’s Landing, I’ll get my sisters back.”

Jaime’s body shakes with a dry laughter, and his eyes lit up in amusement. “When you do that, please give the van to the Freys. I’d love to see that. You should know King’s Landing is not Riverrun, boy. And you’re a fool if you think you can trust Stannis, a man who gave his wife’s brother to the flames to ensure victory. You two belong with each other, seeing your complete disregard for family when it comes to staying in power.”

Blue eyes contort into annoyance, and every inch of muscle in his body stiffs. He sees the satisfaction in the older man’s eyes, and it makes Robb wonder if he wants to hit him because of it, of because of his words. It makes him wonder why he’s always so sure of himself when he’s the one behind a cell. Is he? The way he smiles, and rejoices in other’s pain, seems more like freedom than anything Robb had seen, or felt, these last few months, away from Jon. It’s insane, and disloyal, and poorly serves all the lessons his Father had taught to him since he was a little boy. ‘And did you listen to all these lessons?’ A voice whispers in his head, but he pushes it away. No one knew about him and Jon, but the fact of bringing this up, makes him wonder if Jaime Lannister wanted to make a separation from his Father, just like him from his own. He closes his eyes, as the headache builds and stings behind his eyelids, sliding down his tense line of shoulders and down his trembling arms.

“I’d rather trust Stannis, than in any Lannister.” He announces petulantly, and turns around to leave, with his great cloak taking flight behind him.

“Stark!” Jamie yells, and Robb stops, without bothering to look. “It’s getting quite boring here, to be honest. And I did, answer your question.”

“What do you want?”

“Someone to spar with.” As always, the tone is teasing, but hides a faint sliver of truth. “And I wouldn’t mind if it’s that big cow you brought from Renly’s camp.” 

 

 

“I’ve waited my whole life to see the world from up there.”

His fingers work through the webs of ice, dipping inside the frozen lake as to wash away the last wisps of blood from his hands. The bright red clouds the flowing water, skin resenting the unexpected bite of cold, yet the recent fight has sent a rush of adrenaline through his body, and heat followed just pleasantly, enough to keep the frost air of the land where nothing grows at bay. Jon bites his lips, and tears his eyes away from the lake, and up to glimpse at the Wall, between the snow-shrouded trees. Next to him, he can hear Ygritte fastening her boots with stakes made of jagged bones, as Tormund’s party spreads widely behind them, building their own devices as to make the climb easier with the scants of wood left in these wild-tempered forests. He feels like such a fool.

He knew he shouldn’t have engaged in a fight, not especially when his bond with the wildings was walking on ice now. It was driving him at the edge, sometimes, because with each day, they found new reasons as to shove him away, naming him southron, or crow, recurrently, and with such scorn he knows his deceit maneuver is not going well. Yet, for all things considered, Jon knows the worst of it was when he refused to sleep with Ygritte. Quorin wouldn’t have been such a fool, Jon thinks, bitterly. He needed the trust, it was his way of buying his life for there was no certainty if he will make it to see Castle Black again, but yet the only one to blame for the lack of progress, was him. It was a fortune Ygritte found it quite amusing, later when Jon punched a wilding who labeled him as craven, she decided it was his way of stating his claim on her. It was a dangerous game to play, he knew. Too dangerous.

“Well, at least some of us will. If you find a way to keep your fists down, Jon Snow, maybe a greater lot will get to the top.”

She gives him a meaningful look, a smirk playing on her lips as she sees his embarrassment, behind the faint snowflakes falling from the sky. Jon sits down on the log where she is, and her smirk gets wider only when his cheeks go from white to a sheer red. He takes his knife out, and rigorously starts cleaning the edge. 

“Mance said all soldiers are equals here, from giants to the people from cave tribes. Just thought your friend ought to know that as well.” Jon tells her.

“Well, you could’ve gone easier on him. Not all of us are talented fighters like you.” As her voice died, she flicks her tongue out and uses it to wet her lip teasingly. Jon narrows his eyes, and looks away.

It’s frantic the movement of his neck, and shoulders, for he knows the moment he ceases, the cold will make his body numb and blood frozen. Tormund is shouting orders, hasn’t stopped since the moment the Wall climbed into their range of view, and Orell’s eagle announces itself over their heads, in long tireless circles, which make Jon want to strangle it the more he sees it.

“Orell doesn’t think the same, I believe.” He repeats, casting his eyes not-too-kindly at Tormund’s second in command. Ygritte laughs.

“I don’t care what Orell believes.” She leans closer, and her lips ghost over the masculine earlobe. “He will be in his eagle’s skin when you come to steal me from my bed tonight.”

“Ygritte…” He whispers, uncomfortably, as if the act of just blink would send inappropriate signals to the girl. He swallows, as this close angle permits to read all levels of fierceness in her eyes, and her hair. Her red hair. 

Ygritte pulls back with a note of doubt, like she did little times when her arrows somehow missed. “What’s wrong? Didn’t you say the crows had vows against these things? There’s no one else between us, Jon Snow.”

There is. He wants to say, but the words are trapped in his throat. Instead, he stares at her, lips going into a thin line, and eyes unblinking under the crude northern air. For the first time since he was here, he pleads for Tormund to deliver any task in his mind, but his musing ends when Ygritte tears her face away from him. He can’t see her now, but he knows she’s scowling, and moving her eyelashes, in irritation.

“Fine. Keep your secret.” The redhead hisses, breaking a stick between her pale hands. “It’s not the only one you’re hiding from me anyway.”

“What?” Jon has to ask, and Ygritte raises her head.

“I know you didn’t stop being a crow the day you walked into Mance Rayder’s tent.” Jon’s mouth is slightly parted, and the hand not holding the knife stops. She rapidly drops to her knees and crawls to him, seeking his eyes in a wild attempt of persuasion. “Well, I’m your woman now, Jon Snow. And you’re going to be loyal to your woman. So, don’t ever betray me.”

As you’re doing now, she left unsaid. His hand curls around the knife, and his eyes race to the furthest tree he can find, anything to keep himself from looking at her and reveal more than what he should. How can he lie to her like this? He asks himself, feeling disgusted. Yet, this was never his land. These were never his people. His ancestors were buried on the other side of the Wall, and that’s where his heart was, where every wandered black brother wants to return after years of ranging the forests, where the Sun meets the Broken Tower of Winterfell in a golden hour, and also… He clenches his jaw, and, finally meets her eyes with his. It’s too late to turn back now. 

“I won’t.” He whispers. 

“Good.” She says, eyes cooling off. She purses her lips, and tears her gaze away. Only a mile south now, the Wall begins its long way to the clouds, and Ygritte watches it in deep admiration, with both hands clasped at her knees. “Tormund says tonight we might camp there. In one of the valleys between the ice ridges.”

Jon raises an eyebrow, and sheathes his knife again. He looks at her questionably. “Yeah, I believe he said that.”

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” She tells him, with a smile. “They say the Wall has magic. Maybe if you don’t come to me on your own, the Wall will have to help you do it.”

 

 

Robb stares at the flames in the brazier, supporting his weight with one hand against the wall. 

His eyes are fixed, maybe a bit drowsily, on the burning embers, going too high or too low according to the intensity he reads. He had approached the subject more than a thousand times by now, neither of his resolutions was better than the last one. A part of him remembers when he had expected all to come together through quill and papers, how foolish of him. Running out of time, well, that wasn’t new, but now Stannis’s attack was getting closer and closer with each day he spends here. And even if he tried to tell himself that his fears were unfounded, only a product of the Kingslayer’s mind games, he was still conscious enough to understand what a siege really was. What a military scale like that did to the people, who as always, are on the wrong side of the conflict. His Father had taught Jon and him, he had said the words, but the lessons… the lessons…

His hand fists against the wall, and he feels like he’s cooking inside his armor. His mouth twitches, dryly.

How he wished Jon was here right now. For a moment, he lets himself drown into the past, the taste of the wine he drank early in the festivities heavy in his lips, and somehow, he’s smiling. It was kind of ironic, for when they were little children, Jon would always seek for him, whenever his mother was too hurtful or strict, and hide behind his back for hours. His brother always thought the magic of feeling better was his doing, but Robb never told him, just how much that little gesture was not only helpful for him, that in fact it was Jon who made him feel better than he ever did to him. He was there, behind him, real and not going anywhere. Now, he’s gone Beyond the Wall. And it stings, to know how now they can’t even reach for each other like that again, that the distance is so, so great between them.

His eyes darken under the jumps and leaps of the flames. 

Those times were simpler, innocent, but what came after… What came after had been entirely new to him and to Jon as well. Something neither of them could quite control. Winterfell had lost one of its chambers forever, after his and Jon’s became almost one. Even thinking about it made him dart his eyes to the exterior and check on the sentries, irrational fear they might know… they might hear… It was something too intimate, too confidential. Something that belongs to Jon and him, only. A sad sigh escaped his lips. In the scale of the universe, the best part of him, the part he didn’t even know he even possessed, ended the same way it began. Of course it had to end, did he really think he could have Jon besides him all of his life? Something that wouldn’t imply wrongness, if Jon had been the title Lord of Winterfell, if he was the ancestral seat of House Stark, filled with his wife and many children. Not his brother. It had been many months now, Jon had gone to join the Night’s Watch, and Robb was here fighting Lannisters to avenge his Father, but still the ache of the break up was fresh and lingering.

A break up he didn’t choose, no matter how many laws he broke. It was the only sliver of happiness he could ever claim in a position where a man wasn’t allowed to want or desire, and yet he lost it. And it was Jon who did it, to protect Robb from Robb himself. 

It’s feels like a lifetime away the last time he laughed, or smiled, the last time he ruffled Jon’s black hair after a ride to the Wolfswood, and now all that’s left of it was in the flames, like a ghost visiting from the past. Residual images of what was once his life. And that boy wasn’t afraid to show his fears if it means that Jon was there to listen, to hold him, to see him as he really was, when other knights or lords would just pat his shoulder and say how the North never had a King like him.

“Your Grace,” He heard Olyvar’s voice outside, taking him out of his reverie. “I brought your supper.”

“I’m not hungry.” He says. And after a pause, adds. “Please, take that to the Kingslayer, Olyvar.”

“He’s… busy, Your Grace.” The young boy coughs, nervously. “Sparring with the lady… with the knight… with the lady knight.”

Robb arches an eyebrow. Well, at least someone was having a good time here. Though, he couldn’t imagine the look on his mother’s face when she learns her new sworn sword had been spending time with one of his prisoners, the Kingslayer above all. In truth, Robb wanted someone to test the man as far as able, and he knew none of his bannermen would be up for the task, judging their lack of impartiality where Lannisters were concerned. Brienne turned to be the ideal match, someone the same Jaime Lannister proposed, and Robb got along with it, first just to annoy him, but then, to his surprise, it turned to be quite useful. And he needed everything Brienne had to say about him…

He sighs, when he hears the young squire’s footsteps disappear into the night.

His eyes trace a long curve around his tent, red and avid in firelight, and rest lastly on his wooden desk, this time though the sheet of parchment gleams with black letters, his handwriting. Above it, the longsword is smiling across the wall with grey, weighty steel, foreign material to Ice, the ancestral sword of House Stark. It almost feels like a mockery. Something that craves to be released explodes in his chest, while his blue eyes drink in the slight and the shame, once again, to their House. The exhaustion makes his eyes turn to the bed, alone, and cold, but equally attractive even so, yet he resists it and strides to his unfinished paperwork, sitting heavy on the chair once again.

“I know I should’ve done this a long time ago.” He says, to no one in particular. He needed words and ideas out of his chest, to leave room for more, so he begins to talk. Someone he knew too well was always there, to listen. “A part of me was selfish, I know…This is what you wanted your whole life, to be a real Stark, and yet I was so afraid…” His fingers crumple the sheet of paper, which turns dark in the firelight. “Of course, you deserve it. You deserve it more than any of those lousy lords of the Vale my mother insists on bringing up. And if I die… if I die, I don’t want anyone else there but you, Jon. But I want Winterfell as a whole, I want you to have Winterfell as a whole, with Ice, and Sansa, and every bit of the North they stole from us.” His voice betrays him, finally, when behind his mane of red curls, his eyes are speckled with tears, which are only seen when the fire angles enough. “I need you to be alive, Jon… I need you to live and come home, so you can take my place as King in the North.”

A gust of wind slips inside through the open flap, and the yellowish parchment takes flight, enough to reveal the royal seal of the direwolf at the end. The legitimization decree is now complete, before every law which rules the Seven Kingdoms. Robb’s brow creases, as his thumb rubs the name Jon Snow melancholically, now never more. He was his true brother now, Jon Stark, the heir of Winterfell. But his heart sinks, all the same.

“I’m going for Sansa.” He announces, with the determination of someone who knows what awaits at the end. His eyes pick up bravery, like this night was all about his bannermen eating him alive because of his decision. Though, that wasn’t such a distant future. He breathes, forcefully. “I don’t know how my bannermen will take that, but I don’t see any other way out. I can’t wait any longer. Even if… Even if, it means I won’t come back.”

Will I die before I get there? Will the Kingslayer betray me the first chance he gets? There’re a lot of questions swimming in Robb’s head. But the open road before his feet, it’s far better than staying here, it’s far better than all these months of deaths and wars. He sent Theon to negotiate with the Ironborns for him, and Winterfell burned. He sent his mother to make an allegiance with Renly, and Renly was killed. He needed to do this, and he needed to do this on his own. There wasn’t a better time than now.

“I want the North to be safe, even if I’m not around to see it. I probably deserved that. If I had listened to my mother about Theon, Bran and Rickon would still be alive.” He bites the corner of his mouth, remembering Bran’s chestnut hair, and Rickon bouncing curls. “I can’t bring them back… and I can’t change all the wrongs which happened to us since we left home, but I know what I can do to protect what’s left of it. To protect the North, in the name of Father.”

Closing his eyes, he evokes the memory of his Father, of Maester Luwin, of Ser Rodrik, and begs them to guide him. If he was to make another mistake, let this not be the day. Let his bannermen forgive him for stretching hands with the enemy even if it was to save a loved one, let his ancestors forgive him for such a slight in all the history of Kings before him, and let Jon forgive him… For being selfish, above all. His fingers tighten around the quill as he signs the parchment, granting the North with one more son, with Stark’s blood on his veins. And the man he was in love with.

‘You can’t be Lord of Winterfell, you’re bastard-born. My lady mother says you can’t ever be the Lord of Winterfell.’

“I’m sorry…” He says again, his eyes fog beneath his lashes as he stares at the paper. And he sees himself in the past, along with injured grey eyes in a clear snowfall. 

He was selfish, that’s what his tears were telling him.

 

 

Jon was awake, in a blink of an eye. His shoulders tense defensively, as his eyes adjust to the reality around him. 

This was nothing like the lasts bits of conscience he had before falling asleep, where the cold crept inside the holes of his bones, as the mouth of the Wall opened above them, sending tendrils of icy wind in their way. Finally, after the lasts miles which proved to be the toughest, they made it to the top and the furthest place they could ever be from the Earth. Yet, Jon knows there was something else, something which graced him with wide open eyes, even when his body was claimed by exhaustion from the previous climb, even when his mind and the world beneath his feet were two separated things now. And to think Robb and him had known the highest place of Westeros in the Broken Tower of Winterfell, it almost brings a raspy laugh from his throat, if he remembers how to use it. 

He slowly stumbles onto his feet, and shakes the cloth of snow from his limbs as his muscles complain, like fibers of an old weirdwood tree. 

He takes a couple of shaky breaths, since the air here exists only to please a very reduced assemblage of organisms, but it was all the way worth it when his eyes leap to the south. He feels a pull towards the precipice, until there’s nothing but inches from his legs and the jump. 

Every bit of his body freezes, even snowflakes and the droplets of water in his lashes are actually static. It’s not the same, he thinks, in awe. It can never be the same. 

He remembers the first time he stood watch atop of the Wall on his first days at the Night’s Watch, and how hours seemed to go on forever as the cold unpleasantly asked him to give up and never believe in warmth again. It was almost like the evil twin of the Wall. Now, head completely submerged on the south side, he could start believing, for the first time. Holding his breath, he observes arrows of light fairly touching hillsides, and green corridors alike. A balcony which offers the history of the boy who left Winterfell, and traveled north the Kingsroad, through the Gift’s lands, and finally Castle Black, it all comes back to him now since he can see every root and stone of his journey. Every keep and windmill, so small he could actually crush them with his fist. His eyes venture even further, following the almost faint Kingsroad to the snowcapped mountains in the distance, where green gives way to blocks of ice in a sheer wait of sunrise.

And he can’t tear his eyes away, even if he wanted to. As he fell silent, he listens to the tales it has to offer, tales he heard from his Father’s lips about the North, because there’re thousands even in the places he can’t reach.

It almost feels like a dream. And without knowing, he relates the feeling with seeing his mother for the first time. 

Jon blinks and forces his eyesight even more, desire heavy in his chest, to see past Winterfell and the Neck. To reach the Riverlands, or probably some war-stricken acre of land, to see an army encampment with direwolves banners all over the heights, to see columns of dark smoke, or a rectangular tent, and finally to see… 

“Are you okay?” He turns around and sees Ygritte behind him, curiosity dawning in her still sleepy eyes. Jon swallows, and his breath mists across the air, suddenly mindful of the wilding’s encampment around him. 

The white world is foreign now to his senses, but something about it still refuses to yield. 

“Robb…” He whispers, looking over his shoulder again. He felt something just now… and his eyes gaze across the world to the site where supposedly Robb’s camp was. He was troubled, and upset… but how?

“Robb?” Ygritte repeats, lading her head. “Who’s Robb?”

“No one.” He says rapidly, taking a couple of quick breaths and hoping it serves to keep his worries at bay. 

He glimpses over Ygritte’s shoulder and sees Tormund stirring from his sleep, the giant red man voicing the first orders amongst the rudimentary assemblage of bones, hide and wood which consists on their camp. Orell was long awake by then, a man who was probably well used to these majestic views thanks to his warg abilities, just so his arm is firmly outstretched and his eagle perched atop of it, like a statue of Bran the Builder. The sunlight descends on them, but finds only fog in Jon’s head because, even if he tries he can’t ignore what just happened. He heard Robb’s voice in his head, and he saw him in his tent, even if it was physically impossible.

Why? What was going on in the south? Sam said earlier his bannermen had rallied to his side, so everything should be okay with him… shouldn’t it?

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” The girl’s voice hits him, and he felt particles of ice in his cheeks and hair. Her face was also glistering under the bite of the sun.

“You almost didn’t live to see it.” He reminds her, using a tone he hopes portray peace within him. He glares at Orell again, only this time his eyes are iron lances. To his surprise, Ygritte only laughs.

“And you’re going to be so sullen about it?” She replies. “If you’re going to be sullen about something, it should be because Mance isn’t here. He’d love to see this.” She breathes in, and smiles. “Do you know each and one of these lands with southron names? Even the furthest?”

The Riverlands, yes. Even if no one can actually see them this far away, he knows by instinct where to find them. Robb isn’t there, he resolves. He was crowned King in Riverrun, Jon knows, but his army should be well-placed in the Westerlands by now. Will he move against Casterly Rock? Was it the reason he was so upset about?

“Yes, I do.” He sighs. Stop thinking about him, he scolds to himself as he clears his throat. “But I don’t think these are the kind of lands Mance will like to sing about.”

It’s a poor statement, but he hopes it serves to cool off any kind of hostility the wildings may cradle when the assault begins. But, he knows it’s futile. Ygritte’s eyes sparkle in interest, and as he’s trapped between the wildings to his left and the precipice to his right, she allows her body to come just inches from his, and blocks his way out. For a moment, he’s as stiff as the stakes they used to climb, but a moment later a wince falls from his mouth. Ygritte purposely poked the hand which he used to pull her up, now a blistered poor thing under his gloves. 

“And what about you? You saved my life, Jon Snow… but you don’t like when people say thank you. You barely talk, and you don’t let others talk to you either.” She grips his hand harder and he almost screams, feeling slender fingers across it. “So, Bleeding for us is okay… but speaking… I guess that’s only reserved to—”

“Enough.” He says in a growl, and yanks his hand away. 

Ygritte only glares at him. Jon fights the urge to bite his lip under her eyes, how many mistakes can one man commit in one single day? He pulls the curls at the back of his ear as punishment, and looks at her again, at her faint thin line of lips, and angry pair of eyes. There’s nothing there which speaks of compassion now, but a pure desire to stick an arrow between his eyebrows.

“We still have a long way to go before us.” He says, quickly. Jon knows Ygritte has a thousands things to say, but somehow, without asking for it, his tone was so cold her tongue actually is tied up in her throat. 

Well, he couldn’t say he wasn’t expecting this. After all, each day was more of a revelation of how little of his old self was left. The blisters in his hand are almost tender compared to the strings in his body, pulling and twisting like iron tongs, a pain which has another face when a man reaches this height and he actually can see as a dust mote the place where his lover was, thousands of miles away. So close, and yet so far. He doesn’t know how something like that could ever be right again, and wonders if he hadn’t seen it… if he had resisted from the beginning, then it could be more bearable in the days to come. There was no Sam now to stop him, but a complete numbness, and the notion that this world he sees now could turn into a field of blood if he doesn’t do his duty and stop Mance’s army.

He leaves Ygritte at the edge of the precipice, and turns back to help Tormund.


	2. Chapter 2

The Greyjoy’s Rebellion.

She remembered it like yesterday. She remembered the urgency in Ned’s voice, far from thrilled as her own cries rebelled against Robert’s wishes once again, she remembered her own agitation, her inner walls crumbling over their own weight as the battle was lost before it ever began, she remembered hot, furious tears bursting from her eyes, days before blissfully ignorant of the spawns born from a war she thought, was over. It was the first time –and the last, her husband spoke to her with iron in his voice, meant to hurt and subdue her, and so evacuate her own state of crisis, even if it meant his honor as a man who loved his wife was flawed. Catelyn resolved he never looked more like Brandon than he did that day, the brother who would carelessly break any law, if his love for horses was taken away from him. If the passion which jolted his body was extinguished. She never thought she’d live to hear someone speak to her that way again, until now. And yet the worst part of it was that Robb never truly confronted her, just quite the opposite.

Why did he have to take so much after his Father? Catelyn asks the Gods. 

Robb had become much like any son of the North should. He was methodic, and his mind never goes further ahead than the rest of his counselors, he was disciplined whether in the battlefield or war council’s meetings, he praised routines and his bannermen’s passionate hearts all the same, and he praised the sacred laws, the laws of the Old Gods, above all. But there was a fracture there only a mother can see, and when he started to avoid her, gracing her with only a tired look across the table, or from one tent to the other, then, she knew something was wrong with him. He wouldn’t speak, he wouldn’t go looking for her. At first, Catelyn thought it was his way of mourning, Theon and the Ironborns had Winterfell now, and the urgency to know what happened to her little boys, made her press the issue of Sansa and Arya even further. She blamed herself for his isolation, yet when Brienne told her of her nights training with the Kingslayer, something the own King had entrusted her with, Catelyn could only stare. Wide-eyed, like the words were acid thrown at her.

“Training?” She said, stunned. Brienne shifted uncomfortable in her armor, and nodded.

“Yes, My Lady.”

“Why?” Catelyn asks, and she doesn’t know how, but under the weight of her own stare, Brienne is somehow shorter. “Has he explained it to you?”

“No, he only said it was something the Kingslayer asked of him, citing good behavior.” The tall woman says.

“Good behavior?” Catelyn clasps her chin, in the attempt to find what was left of clarity in her head to think this through. Had Robb gone mad? Since when anything coming from that man can be considered good? As sweet as Lannister’s words could be, they often hide the twisted perversions as she once saw in Tyrion Lannister. And Robb knew that. “Brienne, you must tell me everything.”

“My Lady, I think it will be best if you talk to your son about it. I’m in really no position to say—”

“He entrusted you with this, so you’re clearly in a better position than me.” She says, though she regrets it as soon as the words leave her mouth. Her eyes climb to meet the blonde’s ones as tension gives room between both women. “I’m sorry.” Catelyn admits, honestly, cradling her head under a look which speaks volumes of worries. “He’s been avoiding me for days, and now…this.” She bites her lip, while Brienne does a considerate nod. “And the Kingslayer. Hasn’t he tried anything? Isn’t Robb aware of the kind of danger this implies?”

“If I may, Lady Catelyn, there is anything that tells me the Kingslayer is doing this for some kind of double-crossing. He seems… only fond of fighting, if nothing else. He never once tried to escape, or use aggression as a way to freedom.” 

The oddness in her voice tells Catelyn she’s quite surprised by this as well, and who wouldn’t? It was the same man who pushed Bran off a window, who laid siege on her ancestral home and killed some of their own at the Whispering Wood, now a submissive dog looking only for entertainment with a sword? No, she twists her hands in the folds of her skirt frenetically. This was wrong. The lion doesn’t ask to be tamed and were she look to Cersei, or Tyrion, and see what imprisonment did to any of them, she would suspect this was a plot. Has the grief blinded Robb? After what happened with Theon?

“I believe you, Brienne.” She says, as the western sky catches an elegant side of her face under a soft light. “But I honestly can’t believe the Kingslayer…” She bites her lip, as the rustling of leaves follows, seeing the wounds and cuts the sword of this man brought into their formation, and the way the bodies fell to the ground tells her Jaime Lannister belongs only in the pits of a cell’s block, with his arms tied back and no access to any weapon. Like they did to Ned –her mind whispers. If Robb missteps again, the axes will go to their throats this time. Catelyn shakes her head. “This man would do anything in his power if it means…”

“Anything.” Brienne repeats, clear blue eyes looking at Catelyn as daylight dips inside. “My Lady, I saw Stannis’s eyes the day he and Renly met for the first time. I know what anything meant when I did, yet I waited too long, and Renly was killed because anything for Stannis implied going to the furthest consequences to secure his claim. And…” She pauses, and looks away. “I don’t think I saw the same in the Kingslayer’s eyes. It doesn’t always have to come to that, especially if there are interests at stake on both sides.”

Catelyn closes her mouth, and watches her blankly. Yes, sometimes she forgets Brienne and Jaime Lannister would serve the Warrior, and she wonders if serving him, implies also a great wound in a knight’s heart when the loved ones where on the other side of a sword’s blade. Was this the kind of interests Brienne was talking about? Jaime Lannister wasn’t a man of honor, that wasn’t new, she resolves, but maybe this has nothing to do with honor. Or flipping a coin and see where it lands, on the good side or the bad. He’s scared –Catelyn narrows her eyes. Stannis scares him, for Cersei, and Tyrion. When she opens her mouth to reply, one of her son’s guards steps in and clears his throat as to announce himself.

“My Lady, the King will see you now.”

“Thank you.” Catelyn stands up, nods to both of them, and leaves, folding her skirts between her hands.

She finds him in his tent, as usual, immersed in the study of his maps and operations, eyes going up a down in a flurry as somehow Catelyn has the feeling he’s been reading more than Maester Luwin ever did in his life. His curls are clinging to his forehead, and his cheeks are a bit hollowed and sunken, probably a sign he’s been neglecting meals. Grey Wind, on the other hand, seems to be hungrier with the second, and she wonders if he’s eating for his master and himself both, during hunts. It makes her shift uneasy under the angle of the tent, as Robb brings his chin up, and catches her glare.

“Mother.” He says. 

Sometimes Catelyn has to remind herself he’s a King now. Observation comes easy for her, she can’t help it, and that’s how she knows she probably won’t get all the answers she needs today. There’s too much in Robb’s eyes, yet he closes them to keep himself from revealing the unnecessary.

“Robb…” Her eyes are scowling softly at her firstborn, and her shoulders are just as tight and steady, because there’s a wish in the mother inside of her to discipline, and he needs a lesson. Even if Robb is King now, he cannot keep her in the dark any longer, not in matters such as these ones. “Brienne told me everything. Do you want to explain to me what this is all about?”

His hands fall from the table to both sides, as he sighs.

“Look, I know you don’t like this.”

“No, I don’t.” She denies, as desperation floods her eyes. “How long have we had Theon as a ward in Winterfell and how long did it take for him to betray us? You’re not only making the same mistake again, Robb, but an ever bigger one if you allow a single hair of this man out of his imprisonment.”

“I know what happened with Theon was my fault, I don’t deny that…” He begins, after exhaling. Stepping closer to his mother, his Tully’s features are caught up under the afternoon light and Catelyn can’t ignore how tall her son is now. “I did something I wish I hadn’t, and now I’m paying the consequences. Yet, if I had Theon’s brothers or sisters here, things would’ve been different. But I don’t…” After a quick glare towards her, to check her reaction, the King adds. “I have something else.”

“Yes, the Kingslayer.” She grants, as her brow furrowed, trying to put two and two together. “So, what does this mean? Are you finally convinced enough to exchange him for your sisters?”

His empty eyes hesitate for a second, and when he opens his mouth to reply, a great boisterous scream happened behind them as the Greatjon makes his way inside, followed by all the High Lords of the North to commence with the war council. Robb looks at his mother with a twitch in his jaw, nervously, and Catelyn can’t help but to drop her lips a slight inch, as she arranges her face into frustration.

“Good day for the crows, isn’t it?” The Greatjon says as he marches in, pulling heavily on the back of his chair. “And our northern brothers will be delighted with the fair number of Lannister men we assembled for them. If they’re ever good for digging latrines, at least.”

“First, we have to deal with the Ironborns holding Moat Cailin, My Lord.” Robb tells him, patiently, as he whirls to the higher seat, each head in the room following him. “And then we can lend a hand to our brothers in their fight, if the Gods allow it.” We have to, Robb thinks, shutting his eyes, or I’ll go crazy.

Catelyn observes her son bluntly, who shoves his cloak away as he sits down, a sigh forms in her lips as she too looks for a place to sit. 

Robb takes turn to watch each and one of them at the head of the table, starting with Lord Karstark, somber and withered on his left, and then leaping, drinking in their frowns and clenched jaws equally, until his eyes come to rest on Ser Ryman Frey. Walder Frey’s first grandson has taken on from his Father, Stevron, who died at Oxcross, yet Robb finds little comfort on this man here, as he didn’t with his Father. The heir of the Crossing is cradling a mug of ale in his hands, and his giant body was caught between drunkenness and a total lack of his senses, so much as to believe a cough will do not serve to wake him up. Robb works his indignation with a glower, yet somehow, he resolves it maybe for the best, since he knows what’s coming would not please the Freys anymore than his own men.

“Lord Glover,” He speaks, voice ascending into command. “Do your men have the alignment of the Tyrell’s army?” 

“The scouts my brother tasked with this endeavor confirmed Lady Brienne’s piece of information.” Galbart Glover’s observation is somehow something they all press forward to listen closely. He goes on, gravely. “Its official Lord Tyrell won’t be joining forces with Stannis, yet there’re troop movements coming north from the Roseroad.”

“So, this means Mace Tyrell is no Lysa Arryn, for all we know.” says Lord Umber, eyeing Catelyn with grim humor. She takes the words with little response, and her eyes take a tour across the table, watching Robb as they go, and finally Lord Umber.

“Lord Tyrell has been grooming his four children for power all his life.” She says, icily, and measured. “I hardly think he’s like my sister, My Lord. His aspirations come second to one thing only, the assemblage of the greatest southern army since the Rebellion. An army which is unlikely to stay behind if logistically no one can measure up to it.” 

“Stay behind, no. But if he means war, which side will he choose?” Lord Karstark asks.

“Lord Glover,” Lady Stark glares at the Lord of Deepwood Motte across the table, and something close to panic sits on her face. “Was the army’s high command with them?” It was something odd to ask, Robb resolves, yet he screws his face to listen as closely as he can. 

“Yes, My Lady. Mace Tyrell himself, his son Garlan and Lord Randyll Tarly, the three of them at the very spearhead.”

Robb purses his lips, and looks to his mother through wide-opened eyes. “Three commanders on the frontline can only mean they want to speed up their march as to...” His eyes jump to the Greatjon, who snorts irritably.

“Form a coalition front?” The big man spits. “So, another battle will be denied to us because Lord Fat Flower is too tempting for Tywin?”

So, this is what Mace Tyrell was waiting for. Someone as stupid as to bite the bait, if only to test the Tyrell army on the field, and Robb had to remember the only battle Robert Baratheon ever lost was the Battle at Ashford, which saw both fronts collide and history favored the Lord of Highgarden. What’s Tywin Lannister’s next move? He remembers asking the Kingslayer and he closes his eyes. His plan only contemplates one possible answer to that question, and if he’s wrong again… He can’t. And he won’t.

“As fast as their horses can be, there’s no way a southern line of thousands soldiers can reach Tywin on time. If Tyrells and Baratheons want to play warfare in King’s Landing, so be it. My Lord Father would say—” 

“And what of my daughters, My Lord?” Catelyn turns her body to face fully Ser Ryman, and somehow she looks like she’s the one holding the sword. “Leave them on their luck as the city’s encirclement begins? When the walls of the Red Keep are not high enough, which one of them will remember we have Jaime Lannister as our prisoner? One House took my Lord Husband’s head, and the other burned his gods on the Godswood at Storm’s End.”

Robb rubs the bridge of his nose tiredly, as he wonders if his mother knows just how much she and the Kingslayer have in common. Stannis, clearly, isn’t their favorite person at the moment. He watches as Lord Karstark bends from his seat to talk to Torrhen in private, because he’s been wrinkling his nose at tedious extents giving the Freys’ proximity. Petyr Pimple shifts nervously on his seat, but everytime he opens his mouth to speak, a Northman would spoil his moment with a bark or a bawdy jest, or a thunderous laugh. Robb looks at him curiously, and moves two fingers at him, indicating his permission. When the moment finally is granted, it’s Dacey Mormont who cuts him this time, stealing the words from the tip of his tongue. 

“Lord Bolton is garrisoned in Harrenhal, Your Grace.” She says, unimpressed at the young Frey’s exasperation. “Maybe he can raise a score and take the girls out before the battle begins?”

“Bolton’s orders were to stay and hold Harrenhal.” Robb denies. “Just like Edmure’s were to stay in Riverrun.” He finishes eyeing his mother, who glares back. “They have already bled us enough at the Battle of the Green Fork, and I’m not about to take another blow.”

Besides, I won’t trust the lives of my sister to a man like that, he left unsaid. “No, of course not. We were supposed to take the blow here,” Lord Umber regrets, smashing the table with his fists. “Are we the bloody wildings now we can’t take one single castle? Even the stinking krakens are crossing swords while we seat here on our arses.”

“Well, Kevan Lannister still holds Casterly Rock, Father.” The Smalljon says, rather as a joke than a true statement. “We can pretend he’s Tywin. Just like Whoresbane did when everybody knew who was the whor—”

“Shh! Boy, we don’t talk about that here.” 

Torrhen and Dacey laugh, while Robb can’t help but chuckle, remembering the day he and Jon learned why Whoresbane was called Whoresbane. But the smile fades from his face as he catches his mother’s stern glare. He coughs, and the lightness of the mood is gone. And of course. Will he and will he not start filling the table, each of his bannermen trying to outsmart the other, bicker when the innocent Petyr Pimple asked if the real lions kept in the bowels of the Rock won’t take revenge after, which earned him a bump on the head by the Greatjon. 

Lions against wolves. He had only one, but wouldn’t that be a battle worth seeing? Perhaps, what everyone in this table, sans his mother, was hoping for. A great triumph, with parades and histories to fill thousands of books, as to put an end to all the misery and desolation which has come to them since his Father died. The Blackfish’s plan might have worked, the morale was high, and he made sure to place strong orders into his searjants in the Riverlands, everything was aligned for it to work… but it wouldn’t. Tywin wasn’t coming here. He didn’t know this but these words were been whispered, all over again. And he remembered the blazing green in the Kingslayer’s eyes, words binding him to comprehension. The same one I did when I crippled your Father, he had said. And what better thing to cripple them than to deny them battle when they needed it the most?

His lips were curved downward, and there was something consuming his eyes.

“Why would you choose that?” He could see himself at six name-days, scowling over the tableboard, as Jon only smiled, holding the wooden piece before his eyes. “The Kingsroad is prettier. Nobody will hear the drums of victory on a goat track.”

“When the Young Dragon conquered Dorne,” Jon begins playfully, moving his hand forward and placing the small game piece, as to corner Robb’s. “He used a goat track to bypass the Dornish watchtowers on the Boneway.” He won. His smile gets wider, as Robb sulks. “You know, sometimes pretty doesn’t win wars.”

“No, I suppose it doesn’t.” Robb whispers, in the present, blinking to set the fogs of his infancy at bay.

“We only take orders from the Young Wolf,” Black Walder was saying at The Greatjon, while the flash of his short dagger was at display. The northerner’s hand wasn’t far from his own weapon. “And if he says—”

“I haven’t said anything yet, Black Walder.” Robb reminds him, voice as deep as a cold cut.

The scuffle ends as the King stands on his feet, and circles the table, bypassing his own men, and the men bounded to him by his marriage alliance with Walder Frey’s daughter. His shoulders are tense, and the veins around his white knuckles jump when the angle allows him to catch a full view of the map. He could feel the eyes of his mother bored into him, and the seconds of silence across the high-crowded room are longer than they should be. Instead, the days from Stannis’s attack are getting shorter, as egoism of time. Robb crooks his neck to the entrance for a split of a second, before his eyes gravitate back to the replica of Westeros.

“We hold council today at the enemy lines we hoped to see ours at the beginning of our campaign.” Robb says. “Our strategists worked and worked well, since these lands had not been taken by any army before. And the Crag will be next.” He finishes, as a dark light sits on his eyes. “It’s more of a ruin than a castle, so the garrison won’t put on a fight. Lady Maege Mormont is a half day ride and says a quick surrender is expected. The main gate is yours, My Lord.” Robb eyes the Greatjon, testily. “So make sure your blow is true.”

“Aye, Your Grace. They’ll never know what hits them.”

“Attack the Crag?” Lord Karstark opens his old, lined eyes wide and incredulous. “If Tywin Lannister fools us and goes east, then—”

“You won’t participate on the assault, Lord Karstark.” Robb glares at him, with rectitude. “I had to split up my army in two before, and now I am forced to do that again. I want you, Torrhen and one tenth of my horses to march north and retake Moat Cailin from the Ironborns…” Knowing all the stunned looks are on him now, he closes his eyes. “…on my terms.”

“My men followed you into battle without question, and now you’ll have their bodies riddled with arrows and dying on the accursed bogs of the Neck?” Lord Karstark spits, as fervor and stupor erupt at the same time. “Moat Cailin has never been taken from the South.”

“I never said anything about the South.” Robb frowns, and his gloved hand go to the map, tapping the Mountains of the Vale with one of his fingers. “Bolton now controls Harrenhal so your march through the Trident should imply no obstacles, not until you turn east on the High Road. Before that, your troops must split up, one column of mounted knights to follow Torrhen and take defensive positions near the mouth of the Neck. The other one to ride for the Bloody Gate, deep into the Vale’s territories.” His finger stops temporarily there, and his frown is complete now. “My aunt Lysa’s men would want to know your business there, and you will tell them you have a marriage proposal between Robin Arryn and my sister Sansa, something I want arranged.” His mother’s glare is harder now, but Robb ignores her. “They won’t deny it. So once they open the Gate, you’ll turn southeast to the road of Gulltown, and board a ship to White Harbor. Lord Manderly will be expecting you…” He takes a deep breath. “Both Houses should suffice to take the Ironborn unawares from the East, and once Moat Cailin falls, the causeway will be open for the southern cavalry to end the blockade.”

A simultaneous attack both from south and east. If his plan is successful, this will give them a respite, mostly to Glover and Tallhart’s men whose strongholds had been taken from them. The high Lords exchange long stares between each other, and even if satisfaction doesn’t still quite fit in their faces, they’re no longer bickering. Lord Karstark, for instance, seems out of words. Lord Glover scratches his beard, puzzling over the map. 

“So, this seems authorized.”

“It is.” Robb nods. “Karstark’s men will be missed, no doubt about that, yet there’s no point in keeping a large host here if Tywin will not meet us on the field, like we expected.”

“We will try to save something for you.” Torrhen Karstark says, enthused for both his Father and himself.

“Robb, this is…” Catelyn begins, but her voice deserted her, and some would say she just saw the shadow of Stannis through the door again.

“I just hope you’re not wrong.” The Smalljon whispers, more to himself than the rest of the table.

“Your Grace,” Lord Glover raises his eyebrows pointedly. “Which force will you command?”

His eyes are drawn to the ceiling, and then fall against his will, finally saying, “None.”

Gods, no. Catelyn is not quite sure the moment her hands fly to clasp her mouth, or all eyes, young and old, snap open at the same time. This is not real, she thinks, somebody will say something now and they’ll all laugh, like all the times she did with Lysa in the past. But seconds began to run, and no one said anything. This wasn’t in her head. The confusion comes second to horror only, and the silence only gives way to a loud crack when Ryman Frey’s head slips from his hand and hits the table. Drops of ale were dripping from Umber and Karstark’s beards, while neither of them took any notice of it.

“Robb, please, tell me what’s going on.” She pleads, finally. One of her hands clasps her son’s sleeve, desperately, but he’s not looking at her.

“I think you know, Mother.” He says, and he forces his eyes to lock with each one of his bannermen’s. There’s something which never wanes when he does that. “I think you all know…” His voice is hard, and unflinching.

“There must be other way…” Lord Umber says barely above a whisper.

“There isn’t.” He shakes his head. “You all have daughters, wives, and sisters. You wouldn’t let them in the way of harm if you have the power to change that. I do, that’s why it is time to exchange Jaime Lannister for Sansa.” He closes his eyes, and opens them again. “And only I can do that.”

Blue eyes contort into agony, as Catelyn thinks. Yes, it was the Greyjoy rebellion all over again. Only, the armor plate she’s scratching at with her fingernails is not that of a man. It’s a boy’s.

 

 

The wind is picking up around him, yet it does no longer bring the sound of the horses, the angry gallop as horseshoes bite the road to the northeast of the Westerlands, spurring forward into the cold night. 

Robb does his best to stay grounded. Yet, he angrily taps his fingers against the tree trunk he’s leaning on, watching with deep scorn as his best force of riders is gone in a blink of an eye. One hundred and thirty four Freys had deserted him in one night.

‘Well, why not?’ He thinks, angrily. It’s not like someone will give him a prize for what he just did. And he wouldn’t be surprised if the rest of his bannermen follows the same fate, though, for all he knows, they’d probably be inclined to stay only because they’re bound to him by oath. Without it, they’d be probably back in the North, kicking krakens out of their proud keeps in the name of the coward King who rules them. With a huff of anger, he closes his eyes to hear their voices in his mind, neither of them friendlier than the last one, as his worst dreams, everything he guessed from the start, did meet ramifications. 

_“So, the wolf is greedy after all.” Lord Umber says, after a long silence. “Two Kings clash in King’s Landing and you feel jealous because they didn’t invite you, is that it?”_

_“We hailed you King in the North when your Father died, me and my sons next to me.” Lord Karstark sneers. “Sons who died fighting for you, against the man you’re so eager to stretch hands with now. Theon Greyjoy went to the Iron Islands flying your banner and now our lands are burning in the North, Lannister’s men received mercy at your hand instead of punishment, food, bed and water as some of your own soldiers would in their entire lives. And now this… I’d say you’re a King but you’re not greedy at all, you’re generous. The North was lonely in its grave so you’re sending the Stark’s name as well.”_

_“How is saving my sister also sending my name to the grave?” Robb reaches his fullest height, palms pressed together on the table, as he throws a warning glare towards the Lord of Karhold. “The only thing I regret, Lord Karstark, is not having done this before. Stannis is much of a threat to us as Joffrey is, and none of them is going to spare Sansa’s life, nor any of the Queen’s guards are going to protect her should the walls fall. And they will.” He glares at his mother with the corner of his eye, and proceeds. “I won’t tell you this isn’t risky. It is, but I’d be losing so much more if I stay here doing nothing. I might lose her forever just like I lost Winterfell, and my brothers. Just like I lost Arya.”_

_“You’ll get yourself killed, that what’s going to happen!” Lord Karstark yells, rising from his seat. “You’ll do better employing the Others for guides than the Kingslayer! He’ll offer you as a gift to the westermen garrisoned at the Golden Tooth and break us in retaliation for the bloody Whispering Wood.”_

_“My allies know well how I deal with treason. And my prisoners, even better.”_

_“Do they?” The bearded man steps closer, and the sparks in his own eyes remind Robb of the way the sea catches the sun on a clear day. “And what about the sea creature who gave you his sword in your coronation, Your Grace? Does he know it as well?”_

_“I should be the one worrying about that.” Robb drew his eyebrows together. “You, My Lord… If you’re so worried about the North, you’ll be seeing it soon enough. Or at least I hope you will. If you disobey my command and venture into the Neck’s lands without as much as a guide, you’ll do better considering yourself dead. And even if the Kingslayer is mine’s to King’s Landing, and the only way to my sister, I don’t consider myself dead just yet.”_

_“You don’t consider yourself dead…” Lord Karstark repeats, with grim sarcasm. “That’s what the Mad King said, once. That’s what your Father said, My Lord… when your new friends cut off his head. I will go North and fight your wrecked battles, because I still believe in my grandsire’s lands. And you? Do you still believe in them? What are you fighting for, King Robb?—”_

_“I’m fighting for the North!” Robb yells, smashing his fist against the table, and twenty heads bolted upward. “But the North it’s not just me, and you. The North is also behind King’s Landing. The North is my sister Sansa, and the ancestral sword of House Stark. The North is my Father’s bones, which were never returned to us. How can you expect me to attack the city when it means attacking my very kin?” He takes a deep breath, and adds. “I don’t expect you to understand given how Alys has a new betrothed every five days. But, I am not like you. I will ride for King’s Landing, even if it’s the last thing I ever do. I swear it, for the Old Gods and the New.”_

_“Swear it. It’s a funny thing to say.” Lord Ryman finally says, as he rises from his seat and measures the young King with other eyes. “You also swore your hand in marriage to one of my sisters. And how’s that ever to happen if you don’t have a head, Your Grace?”_

The Freys instantly fled from the council after that, and Ryman Frey was wide awake this time to proclaim the allegiance between House Frey and House Stark was broken. They even demanded he was doing everything on purpose, leading them indirectly to defeat as he knew deep inside the northern army would never beat the Lannisters. Well, Robb didn’t exactly complain, he never wanted to marry in the first place, yet this complicates things to greatest extents.

Grey Wind emerged from the bushes, then. He nuzzled Robb’s knee with his giant head, even though the woods are calling him for an interesting hunt.

“You should leave as well. I wouldn’t blame you.” The King says, jokingly. The direwolf growls displeasingly, and Robb laughs while he pats his head.

“That’s not funny, not even as a joke.”

He turns back to watch the Smalljon joining him, copying his stance onto the adjacent tree. He grins at him, then. “Your pet is the reason we had so many victories here.”

“Did you come to lecture me as well?” Robb asks, furrowing his brow. Though, he knows the Smalljon better than that, by now. It wasn’t in him to criticize his decisions. 

“Me? No.” He laughs. “You know I’ll support any decision which implies the forsaking of the Freys. Believe me, we’re better off without them.”

“You should say that to the Karstarks.” Robb says bitterly. Grey Wind moans, and sniffs his boot.

“Karstark will follow you to the grave. He may be a prickly old man, but I’m sure he agreed with your plan. The moment one of his axes catches an Ironborn in the bowels, he’ll be all happy again.” 

Smalljon shifts against the trunk, his thumb and finger follow distractedly the line of beard which frames his mouth, but his eyes are eluding the King, and it unsettles Robb. The smirk is well-placed in his face, but somehow it misses the usual comicality. He turns fully to him as his arms curl over his chest, yet it does little to help with any kind of inspiration since the Smalljon is almost two heads taller than him.

“What is it?” Robb asks.

He sighs. The night helps to shade the increasing tension, but still doesn’t make this any easier. His tongue is still tied up when it comes to speaking his mind.

“Robb,” He says, recurring to their stretched friendship over the years, as a finger taps repeatedly his giant bicep. “You know I’ll support you in everything you decide to do, I chose you as my King and those will be my words to my death, yet…” He bites his lip. “I just want to make sure you know what you’re doing. Where you’re getting yourself into. The Kingslayer slewed your Father’s men in King’s Landing and bled us at the Whispering Wood. This isn’t a collateral partnership, this is you choosing death over everything we achieved so far. Bloody hell, you might even be the King with the shortest rulership in history if this ends badly. I know you’re worried about Sansa, but she wouldn’t appreciate you risking your life in a suicide mission, a plan with so many flaws even the wildings will get their Maester’s chain in strategy. You would not even let anyone go in your place, Dacey or Patrek, or me. We swore to protect you, and if anything happens to you…”

Robb chuckles. “I saw your eyes through the meeting and I was wondering when would you approach me with this.” He brings his lower lip inside with his teeth, and the smile gives way to a scowling form. “But I trust you understand anything you say right now won’t make me change my mind about this.”

“Let me at least, go with you.” Smalljon says, worriedly. “We can raise a token force, and go to King’s Landing unnoticed.”

“No.” Robb shakes his head, fingers curling around Grey Wind’s neck, who seems ready to spring after a squirrel. “I need this to be as discrete as possible. The city walls must be heavily-guarded now and a company of five to ten men is the same as a quick death.”

“So, it just you… and the Kingslayer.” Smalljon quirks an eyebrow. “Sneaking into King’s Landing when the city is under siege.” His lips have the ugly shadow of denial. “I don’t like it. I don’t like it one bit.” He sighs and his giant hand palms Robb’s shoulder, forcefully enough to make him miss his balance. “At least, tell me you’re taking your dog.”

“Yeah, I’m taking him.” Robb grants a fond smile to Grey Wind, and the wolf almost howls of happiness. 

“Good. At least, now we know if the Kingslayer wants to slit your throat in the middle of the night, he’ll be one hand short.” 

 

 

He found her at the top of the hill. The wind was rustling her long locks of red hair, as it would when they first met each other at the Frostfangs. She had had a bow in her hands that day, a quiver with three arrows, and ten more spilling from her eyes when fixed upon him. He remembered that look. It brings little comfort to see it again, yet he knows it something that can’t be helped.

I can’t give you what you want, Ygritte. His heart says, like a slash of icy northern wind. Though, he wonders if it made him even less a hypocrite to deny her for his love of another than for his vows to the Night’s Watch. It was an idle thought, and he supposes he should be happy his head is still attached to his neck for the time being, yet the number of arrows piling up between her feet is increasing expansively as of right now. Female hands tend to each of her weapons as the world is dead to her, and Jon for a moment, believes even Donal Noye would be envious now. Her head is hung between her shoulders, pale pink lips drawn together in a thin line, and it’s either her hands or her eyes but the arrowheads never looked so sharp, obviously meant to catch one of his brothers in the calf or back when the assault begins. Any would be fine as long as it looks like him. The air is anything but cool when leaves his body, yet in spite of him, Jon closes the gap between them and sits side by side with her. Ygritte stiffens, like a cold dead hand had placed on her shoulder.

“I know that you’re angry,” He says, conciliatory. The crook of his arm is packed with sparse wood for the fire, and he relieves the tension without any finesse into the ground. “Yet, can you spare the trees from all this misery?” Jon hints to the arrows numbered in the dozens, as Ygritte scowls. “You’re not leaving wood left for the fire.”

“You know nothing, Jon Snow.” She says, hatefully. Dropping the last of her handmade arrows to the ground, she spares him a look of intense annoyance. The resentment doesn’t stay there for much longer. “You can drop your white banner of peace, though. It’s even more pathetic than your face.”

“Well, as long as you aren’t on a disputed land, the white banner is as good as nothing.”

“What?” Ygritte stares at him oddly, from under her lashes. Jon shrugs.

“The banner.” He clarifies with a cough. “You, know when an army—”

“I know what it means.” Her face tells more than just that, though, and her eyes bore into his. Jon doesn’t dare to break their stare for he knows each of these days where they do nothing but quarrel they’d become as opposites as the North and the South. “Are you so eager to see your banners and drums again, Jon Snow?” Ygritte slashes his face with her long hair when her knees are quick to release the ground. “Because that seems to be the only thing you enjoy talking about.”

“It’s not that.” Jon stands up too, and seizes her by the arm but when he attempts to stop her, everything spins revoltingly around him, and he doesn’t see her. His brain releases flashes of white, his stomach churns with vertigo when he knows his eyes are fully open, yet he sees nothing. Voices die also, like his head had hit a body of water. All of them, but one, flat, distant, final.

“We have to warn them. For before Winter is done, everyone you’d ever known will be dead.”

 _He opens his eyes._

_The world is fragile, austere, and mankind is still a distant dream between ominous halls of white. If his respiration dares intrude, everything he sees may scatter over the ground like a game of dice, with no players at all. There’s no up and down. Or day and night. The spark of life has not yet been produced for his presence is still offensive here, but Jon understands he wasn’t the only one before, for many walked this path in his place when laws and civilization existed like two sides of the same coin, yet now… Where am I going? It’s like his legs refuse to yield, whether he was walking enveloped in a memory of the icy footpaths of the Wall, or chasing Arya and Bran in the galleries of Winterfell. Telling apart one of the other was difficult, just like discerning the sky from the earth… but there was no yesterday to provide help._

_Only clear, excruciating winter. Either he was on the verge of a precipice, either he was the same man who claimed the top of the Wall for one day, the sky was weeping above him and tending to his solitude with shapes of snowflakes, piling up in his shoulders and hair and gliding in the rigid air like a white fleet. Abundant enough to cover a world which has forgotten trees and wildness. Animals and mankind. And any who serves as a detractor, may put his resistance to rest._

_Will he still see the end if he forces his eyesight to the fullest? Will he still see the end if he’s in the body of an eagle, or a raven? The world answers him. The snow is weighting him down with each step he takes, and everything is defending itself from the intrusive fracture his body implies. As it did before. He can still remember the faces, lying dead on the pale white ground. Abstracts at first, like some sculpture made by the finest silversmiths of King’s Landing. Then, revelation pours into him. Dead horses, numbered in the hundreds, spread about with their heads chopped off, each one brought two more, and so on, and on. A throaty laugh lifts the mood, though Jon doesn’t know how that can be possible._

_“Always the artists.”_

_“Jon!”_

_He knew that voice. He tears his eyes away, incredulously, and sees Robb next to him. Only then, he’s able to come to terms he’s no longer on solid ground. He had managed to slip into a mount, a black stallion which stands alone in the middle of the agonizing white, even if it’s the size of a pore compared to a festered wound. Robb is riding a courser too, clad in armor plate, yet snowdrifts were burying his direwolf-shaped greaves and his mount’s big hindquarters. It’s almost impossible to know where his cloak ends and the ground begins. When grey eyes detail his shape closely…_

_“We need swords on the front!” He was saying, but the wind was eating away his words, and Jon feels his senses as sharp as Maester Aemon’s. “Tell the wildings Lamentation, Orphan Maker, and Vigilance are to take the left flank. The rest to follow Ice and the King’s banner down the center.”_

_Words bring no possible ounce of decency, but he catches their Father’s ancestral sword in his brother’s hand, gleaming with dark light. Ice, he thinks. Then, the swirl of foreign names couldn’t mean something other than… Valyrian Swords._

_He diverts his eyes northward._

_There, like a foul-fungus growth, the line of horizon surrenders to a wound he knew too well. There were no steelpoints harboring possible human offensive, there were no legions of dinted helms and warhorses behind their chieftains or commanders, there were no free companies, greedy eyes behind dreams of conquest. Only, silence. And Jon thought he heard the sound of the three blasts as a faded memory, returning from slumber, along with Sam’s panicked voice, hinting, ‘They never blow three. Not for hundred, or thousands years. Not three.’ Yet, now, that little mattered. His hand was frostbitten and sore, yet warm fingers seize for it, and clutch it tightly as the end of the world spills in front of their very eyes._

_“Stay with me,” Robb says. Eyes committed north._

_“Always.” Jon whispers back, and closes his hand around his, before darkness engulfs them both._

“Boy! Oi, boy!”

Jon bolts upward, only to find himself watching orange beard and Tormund’s bushy eyebrows raised pointedly at him. The sky is a blue arrow above their heads, and he thinks he smells the threat of rain from a bank of grey clouds piling on east. For now, the sensation crawls into him, and pulls him away from the devastation dangling in his mind’s cobwebs. Tormund’s strong arms help him to sit straight, and only then, Jon is able to process where he is, though air escapes from him in long heavy pants. He catches Ygritte’s stunned eyes on him, the way the sun highlights her half-face, and it confirms everything he sees has never been touched by a white infinite mantle of ice. Though, it doesn’t mean it won’t. Winter was coming, though it wasn’t just his Father’s words only.

A part of his heart is with Sam, and his brothers, still North of the Wall. Where were they? Did their days there meet the same thing he saw in his dream? And Robb…

“He saw them.” Orell says, standing behind Ygritte and Tormund, as the rest of the wildings form a ring around Jon. He spies Jon’s reaction, as he adds. “Don’t stay too long there, boy. We don’t need them to add more flesh to their army. Because if they do…” The warg takes two steps to Jon, and his eyes pierce into his the way their magic tells them to do, “You’d wish you’d fallen off from the Wall, after all.”

Jon only stares back, rudely and unblinking.

“Come on,” Tormund says, and pulls Jon up in one single move. “We need to keep moving.” Snorting, he says, “The Thenns will be here any minute.”

The Thenns. He wants to scowl at that. No snow, he thinks, as he starts walking on the last row. For now. How much longer till green, woodland, river and mountain cease to exist? He barely takes on the complaints of a squirmy wilding behind him, who chants about Thenn’s ferocity and abnormal eating habits. As they face south, Jon glimpses over his shoulder at the northern sky, falling behind them. And it brings a brewing snowstorm.

**Author's Note:**

> Basically, trying to change/avoid the RW. Thanks for reading!


End file.
